PEC report profiles CreaTech companies

Analysis by the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (PEC), which is led by Nesta, has shone light on some common characteristics of CreaTech R&D business activity in the UK.

The report used CrunchBase, a global technology company database, to explore drivers of success for CreaTech R&D intensive businesses defined as "those producing knowledge to deliver technological innovation in artistic, creative and cultural domains in the UK".

It identified 2,800 CreaTech companies in the data (8 per cent of all companies with sufficiently large descriptions in the data), and analysed the composition of their leaders’ skills base, their geography, and access to finance.

It found that: 
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• Arts, Humanities and Design disciplines have a stronger presence in the skills base of CreaTech companies.  Key personnel in CreaTech companies are almost six times as likely to have an educational background in communication and media studies than those in non-CreaTech businesses.

• CreaTech businesses are more geographically concentrated than the wider creative industries. Fifty-seven per cent of CreaTech companies are based in London, almost twice the share of creative businesses based in the capital according to official data. By contrast, publicly-funded CreaTech R&D activities are less geographically concentrated. The report also found evidence that creative cities with a diversity of creative industries and research activities tend to have stronger CreaTech clusters than homogeneous creative ecosystems. Public R&D funding could play an important role helping newer and smaller CreaTech clusters to develop and diversify, making the geography of CreaTech, and the distribution of its benefits, more inclusive.

• CreaTech businesses tend to be more reliant on early-stage sources of finance than non-CreaTech companies. CreaTech businesses tend to raise between 22 per cent and 34 per cent less funding, supporting the idea that innovative CreaTech businesses in the intersection of arts, culture and technology might face barriers accessing the finance they need to innovate and grow.

Download the report.